St. James Music Press

I need to echo Gavin’s erstwhile endorsement of St. James Music Press.

Their deal is that they give you, for $55, a book or CD that contains music for 25-ish anthems, with a reprint license for making AS MANY COPIES AS YOU WANT. Ever. Period. If you have a 40-member choir, using just one of the anthems more than pays for the cost. If you have 20 singers, using just two anthems pays for the cost.

Yes, there are costs of time and money with making the copies. BUT, the advantage here is that you can mark up the scores however you wish. Many in my own church choir want to be “hand-held” through any use of Latin, so this lets me write in both phonetic spellings and word-for-word translations.

A collection I purchased, and from which I plan to use several anthems this coming choir season, is the Sunday by Sunday Collection II. A particularly fine piece from it is, I think, the “Ave verum” of Geoff Weaver.

Another bonus is that you can listen to many of the pieces before you purchase a collection. Check out the Weaver.